


God of the Old City

by MindfulExorcism



Series: The Watcher and His God [1]
Category: Bloodborne (Video Game)
Genre: Don't go to Yharnam after the apocalypse kids, Fix-It, Fluff, In which Alfred is cured of the scourge and is Very Confused, M/M, Post-Childhood's Beginning, Slow Burn, of sorts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-21
Updated: 2020-09-21
Packaged: 2021-03-07 19:55:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,266
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26573332
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MindfulExorcism/pseuds/MindfulExorcism
Summary: He reached for the knife, wrapping his fingers around the still-stained handle. He exhaled, closing his eyes as he whispered the silent prayer. The blade’s point drove through the fabric, and he felt it meet flesh…And he stopped. His heart was racing, his hands shaking as he held the knife to his middle. His entire body froze, rigid, unable to move.What am I doing?In which Alfred leaves Yharnam, has an existential crisis, and contends with his past. Not necessarily in that order.
Relationships: Alfred/The Hunter (Bloodborne)
Series: The Watcher and His God [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2079993
Comments: 13
Kudos: 102





	God of the Old City

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into 中文-普通话 國語 available: [【授翻】旧城之神｜GOD OF THE OLD CITY](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28736361) by [Ringeril](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ringeril/pseuds/Ringeril)



> One week. Minimal editing. Why? Because this triangle bastard man lives rent-free in my head and I want him out.
> 
> Heavily inspired by the works of [meradorm](https://archiveofourown.org/users/meradorm/pseuds/meradorm) and [jeza_red](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jeza_red/pseuds/jeza_red).

Was this what came after? Moonlight. White flowers. An endless cloying breeze. This was familiar, he thought; a distant memory. The end of a dream. Yes. he’d died once before, kneeling on this field of crosses and graves, and he’d gone to it gladly. 

It was said that hunters who dreamed once did not do it again, not after Gerhman swung the scythe. Those had been simpler days, for sure; and darker ones, without his master’s hand. 

But perhaps it _was_ the after. The blood on his belly was a testament to that. 

He sat up. The flowers rustled in the unfelt wind, and he breathed in their heady scent. 

“I’ve done my duty,” he said, to no-one in particular. “Logarius’ trial has ended.”

How long ago had it been? Only an hour? The viscera on his garb had still been stiff with cold when he’d kneeled in front of the altar; he’d only paused on his way to behold the broken bridge, and drop his wheel and Ardeo into the sea. 

_Mere tools,_ he’d thought, with a pang of sadness _. Their purpose is gone. No need for them to weigh me on the way back._

And that was the thought he’d carried in his head the whole return, right up until the knife had met his abdomen. 

_The blade had called to him like glory, like bloodlust, like a song; “And thus go thee to death, like the sun follows the moon.” So it was written._

He looked up. The moon… 

Strange. It was full back in the city, and it had always been full in the dream; now, though, it was a crescent, as though something great had bitten a piece out of it. He squinted. Was it a trick of the light, or could he see stars through the gap…?

“Alfred.”

He turned. The voice was… yes. That of a friend. Distant, but knowable.

The hunter sat under the great tree, his legs folded, arms resting on his knees. His mask hid his face, but his expression was one of sadness.

_There was something off about him. A strange light in his eyes. His joints at strange angles. Like something out of the corner of his vision, quickly correcting itself when he focused on it._

Alfred smiled. “So you’ve come here, too?” he said. “A strange place to meet, I’m sure… but you found what you were looking for, I assume? I’d hope. It would be a shame to die before you —”

“Alfred,” the hunter said, his voice more insistent now. “Why are you here?”

Alfred’s eyebrows crinkled. “Oh,” he said, softly. “Perhaps it came suddenly for you? At the hands of some fearsome beast, no doubt…”

“No,” the hunter said. “Why are _you_ here, Alfred? Why did you do that?”

Alfred noticed his gaze was fixed on the scarlet blooming in his stomach, and it was not so much surprised as accusatory. 

He straightened himself up. “It’s as I said,” he said. “My duty is finished. The last Vileblood lays ruined, useless in her current state. My master’s martyrdom is fulfilled. I am of no more use as an Executioner. Our mission is done; and now, I join my brethren in promised rest.”

“Is that what they say now?”

Alfred’s fingers curled into fists. “You condescend me?”

“Quite.” 

Alfred snorted. “Expend it elsewhere, then, wretch. If you wish to throw your jealousy at me —” 

“I don’t.” The hunter rose from his position under the tree, only to lean back against its black back, crossing his arms with a sigh.

_The way he moved was off as well; stiffly, uncomfortably, as though he was unused to it. The edges of him strained to move, confining something within._

“What happened to you, Alfred? I thought you were the last damn sane person in Yharnam.”

“What are you talking about?” His fists curled tighter, creaking against the leather of his gloves. “I had a mission to fulfill —”

“Oh, you fulfilled it. Just fine, in fact. Quite thoroughly, I’d say.”

“And what of it? The world is a better place without that filthy monstrosity —”

“And now what?” he snapped. “You threw the rest of your life away. Escaped from the fact you were blood-drunk as any of the other beasts on the street —”

“And what does it matter?” Alfred retorted with a shrug. “I upheld my sacred duty. My life’s goal is done. My master and my comrades can rest in peace. Nothing will change that.”

The hunter looked sad again, and he sighed. “Who are you, Alfred? Before this. Who were you?”

The breeze shifted, and the sweet scent of the flower rose around him. With it carried an edge of something older. Dustier. Moonish.

“I…” 

* * *

_Who was he, before he was Alfred the Executioner?_

_A beast hunter, of course. Bloodstained and hungry, creeping into the dark parts of the city to cleanse it of the scourge. What else could he do? He’d stumbled in, like so many other desperate pilgrims, and woken up to a night of terror and a past he couldn’t remember. When he’d come to the next morning, severed from the dream, there was nothing left to go to but Yharnam._

_The city ate people, someone once told them; Yharnam swallowed them whole and took them into its belly and made them a part of it._

_He wasn’t sure how literal they meant to be. He still wasn’t._

_It was only a matter of time after that when he’d found the old statue by the old city; found the writings, found the robes, taken the oath, and pieced himself together a creed from something long-broken and lost. Perhaps he found solidarity in that particular aspect._

_It wasn’t much. But it was a goal, and the only shining thing in the blasted city that had devoured him._

* * *

Alfred paused. “Why do you care?”

“Why did you?”

“Hunters need to work together,” Alfred said, distractedly. Had that little island in a sea of loneliness been worth a conversation and a fistful of fire paper? A trek down to Old Yharnam and a soaking in poison? Hunters _did_ help hunters, after all. 

“Hmm.” The hunter paused, looking over the moon again. “I don’t think I’ll ever understand you,” he said, his voice low, with an air of finality. “I never did, really. And I certainly won’t now.”

“What difference is there?” Alfred said, raising an eyebrow. The hunter ignored his question. 

Instead:

“Would you do it all over?” he said. “If you could start again?”

Alfred paused. “Yes,” he said, softly. “I would.”

The hunter then said, heavily, resignedly. “Of course.”

He looked to Alfred then, and his gaze was like an arrow; something unfathomable lurked in his glare, glinting and cold; and though his voice rang quiet in his ears, he could feel some tone of it slither into his bones, burning, burning away something within.

“What you do now is up to you,” the hunter said. “Live. Die. That’s your choice to make. But if you want what’s best for you, leave Yharnam.”

He paused. “And forget me.”

* * *

Alfred woke up to moonlight on his face.

There was blood in his teeth. He wasn’t entirely sure whom it belonged to. Nonetheless he swallowed it down, grimacing at the bitter taste. 

He looked down. There was blood on his robes, as well. And a knife, sticky, cast to the side. 

Recollection slowly materialized. _Oh._

Hands shaking, he undid the knotted cord around his waist and pulled up his robes, coagulant blood peeling from his skin with a faint sting. There was a layer of the stuff still on him — but, he realized, as he traced his fingers over uncut flesh, no wound. 

He closed his eyes. Had he taken a vial right before…? No. he wanted to be sure; and his upper thigh lacked the familiar burn of recent ministration. 

He sighed, squeezing his eyes shut. What had happened between now and then? There was Cainhurst. Then the knife. Welcoming darkness, slowly seeping in. And then….

Something… sweet? Strange angles. Seething anger. Was that what death was like? 

He looked down. Did he even die?

He shook his head. He must have botched it. Or some poor stupid sap had come along and stuck a vial in him before he bled out. Yes. That was it. A kind mistake, easily remedied. 

He reached for the knife, wrapping his fingers around the still-stained handle. He exhaled, closing his eyes as he whispered the silent prayer.

_Peace for the Master, long blessed in his anchored martyrdom… may he find rest… may the good blood guide the path of righteousness…_

The blade’s point drove through the fabric, and he felt it meet flesh….

And he stopped.

His heart was racing, his hands shaking as he held the knife to his middle. His entire body froze, rigid, unable to move. 

_What am I doing?_

It was as though some hot fog had been blown from his mind. That burning force that had driven him the last five years has been all but snuffed out, replaced only with lingering disgust. 

_No,_ he thought, gritting his teeth. He was an Executioner. Hammer of the Healing Church, fist of the martyr; his cleansing fire, his righteous rage….

And there was nothing, nothing, _nothing_ , and he was nothing; empeheral, crawling, worthless, he _would_ claim the glory deserved to him, he would part from this wretched world and live forevermore in death…

But the knife in his hands would move no further, no matter how his muscles strained.

With a cry of disgust, he threw it to the side; head swimming, stomach heaving, he rose to his feet; then, he leaned over the ancient railing surrounding the broken chapel, and vomited. 

* * *

Living terrified him.

Every moment felt like blasphemy; even as he hung, panting, over the iron fence, each breath he took felt like a sin. 

_Coward. Coward!_ his thoughts seethed. Nothing was in his way. Why would a failed attempt stop him now?

He squeezed his eyes shut. _Tomorrow,_ he thought. One more day, spent in contemplation and prayer. He’d take one final communion, return to the altar, and be ready then. 

_And this time,_ he thought, _there will be no one to interfere._

* * *

The sun rose on Yharnam. 

Nothing stirred; there was no sound but for the crunch of old blood vials under his feet. The familiar jangle of the church giant’s bells no longer tolled through the streets. No birds sang or cried. No fires crackled; the blazes set by the huntsmen of the night had long since died. Alongside, it seemed, the city itself.

Perhaps Eileen was right. _Nothing but flesh-hungry beasts now._ Nothing but them and their hunters; one had taken care of the other, it seemed, and then seeped back into parts unknown. 

He paid it little mind, though still kept the Kirkhammer at ready. Part of him regretted not having the wheel, but he dissuaded himself from the idea. Familiar though it was, that weapon was reserved for an Exectution’s prey. Not lowly scourge beasts. 

In fact, the only thing that he encountered on the way back to the Cathedral Ward was a lone, foamy-mouthed dog, pacing by a long-cooled fire. When it spotted him it let out a yelp, and leapt towards him with a slavering maw. Before he could swing his weapon, it fastened its teeth around his leg.

Alfred let out a low curse, before kicking it out of the way and slashing it through with the Kirk blade. The animal howled and slumped to the ground, unmoving.

Alfred shook his head, unmindful of the pain blooming through his leg. _Complacent fool._ His days of being a beast hunter were long over, but such an easy enemy shouldn’t have been able to even land a strike on him. 

The rest of the trip back was uneventful, and he encountered nothing and no one; when he made it back to his cramped cell in the lower ward, he flopped down on the sagging bed and sighed.

 _One day,_ he thought. He’d pray, of course, and realign his thoughts with that of the master’s. But first…

He fumbled about for a vial, finding one in the box by his bed. True, it wouldn’t matter in a bit, but he didn’t want the annoyance of pain distracting him from his contemplation. 

The needle’s familiar sting felt almost beautiful; and he sighed in relief. He pulled back the bloodied fabric of his trousers, watching to see the shallow bite marks close and mend with the dosage of healing — 

_No_. The wound still lingered, unchanging; the pain still remained. 

He blinked, and looked at the vial. Was it an old one…?

He tried a second one. Nothing. The third also failed, as did the fourth. By the fifth one his leg was beginning to ache unpleasantly, and he realized that the euphoria that usually accompanied ministration was suspiciously absent.

Grunting in frustration, he pulled off the cork of his last vial and tipped it down his throat. 

It flooded into his mouth, salty and metallic, coating his tongue and his teeth; as he did, he was filled with revulsion. He choked and sputtered, letting the half-solid mass of blood flood out from his mouth and onto the floor, coughing and gagging.

“What in the name of the Martyr?” he croaked, wiping away the wretched taste from his lips. His hands and fingers were flecked with blood, a sight that now unnerved him. He squeezed his eyes shut, regretting the scent that now filled his nostrils.

 _What’s happened to me?_ He thought, trying not to mind the stickiness on his fingers. _I haven’t been this squeamish…_

Well, not since those hazy early days, when he’d been thrown out into Yharnam with nothing but an axe and a mission. The stains and spatters had frightened him, right up until he took his first vial; after that, everything was as easy as a song, and it invigorated him. 

But now the blood lingering in his teeth made him feel only sicker. The sharp pain in his leg only persisted, and even the remaining viscera on his robe made his stomach churn. 

With unusual vigour he wrenched off his robes, resting them on his desk chair and welcoming the coolness of the night air, stale though it was in his tiny room. 

The blood on the floor could wait. The wounds in his shin could not. 

How long was it since he’d had to dress an injury by hand, he thought as he pulled his pant leg up? The bleeding had stopped, at least. In the end, he settled for dabbing at it half-heartedly with a dampened cloth, wincing as it stung, and wrapping it in a set of old bandages from his training days.

The ache still persisted; after a moment of internal debate, he ended up retrieving a dusty box from under his bed and pulling out an old, half-full brown bottle.

 _Laudanum,_ the ancient label still barely read. He’d found it on the corpse of some foolish foreigner that had fallen prey to a scourge beast, and ended up taking it as a trophy of sorts. It was poison, a church healer once told him; heathen medicine that would rot the mind and the body. 

But whatever haunting recollection from before told him that it offered relief, more so than his nugatory attempt at blood ministry. 

Teeth gritted, he uncorked the bottle. The contents were bitter, more than the blood; but somehow, this was a taste he could stand. 

A moment later and relief flooded his body. Though the sun steamed through the half-curtained window, he felt himself slumping back, taken by the thralls of blessedly drugged sleep.

* * *

_He dreamt of fields; of a lake, vast and sucking; of oceans that vomited forth horrors he could not comprehend; of whispers, prayers, weeping in the dark, cold stone, the smell of ozone, the sticky sound of blood on stone._

_Fear. Fear. In his body. In his heart. He clasped his hands to pray, but no words could come to his mouth; he closed his eyes to meditate, but the blackness followed him there._

_The path gave under him, and there was no light to guide._

Save me, _he thought._ Master, lead me. Take me from this place of evil.

_No sound replied. But a hand, bone-cold and gentle, took curled around his wrist and pressed its fingers into his palm; and a voice whispered into his head:_

_Forget._

_A taste of blood, sweet and cloying. Coldness. Safety. Comfort. A smell of oldness. And then, nothing._

* * *

Alfred awoke. 

He sat up, his head throbbing, blinking in the gloom. Had he slept the whole day away…? He spied the laudanum bottle beside him; with a scowl, he picked it up and hurled it out the half-open window, satisfied to hear the bottle smash on the pavement outside.

 _Insolent sod!_ He thought, rolling out of bed. Was this the way for a protege of Logarius to behave? Was this any fitting last night for an Executioner at his end? 

His robes remained draped over the chair, the holy shawl blasphemously touching the floor. They seemed to mock him. Reminding him of his unworthiness.

 _No,_ he reminded himself. _Weak, but not unworthy._ He’d ended the Vileblood Queen; ended his Master’s suffering. That honor would be his forever. 

And he only needed to immortalize it. 

He dressed in silence, pausing only to mutter a quick prayer and to unwrap the bandages from his leg. No point in wasting them on a corpse, after all.

To his surprise, however, new, pink skin awaited him as he pulled away the last cloth. He ran his fingers over it, expecting to feel a lingering ache; but there was nothing. 

_The blood vials,_ he thought, glancing over to the emptied containers still resting on his desk. _They simply needed time._

Still something of this conclusion felt off, and he wasn’t entirely sure why. No matter. However this came to be was inconsequential. 

The sky was dark when he exited the building; a quick glance at the Astral Clocktower told him that it was only half-past three, but the stormclouds growling overhead threatened to make the midafternoon an early night. 

The city was as quiet as it had been the day before, punctuated by distant rolls of thunder. Everything smelled sharper, damper, with the promise of rain. Blood. Incense. Burned wood, from the old city. Fetid rot, from the corpses he passed. Ozone from the cloud above; and, strangely, as he passed down the steps away from the Grand Cathedral, something floral.

The rain was already sputtering down when he reached the plaza down to the old tomb; by the time he reached the altar, its pace quickened, turning into an impenetrable deluge that sent up a thick steam from the heated cobblestones. 

Alfred pulled up his hood, if only to see better. The knife was where he left it, washed clean by the downpour; even the cloth on the altar seemed freshened, as little rivers flowed around the crown seated on it. 

He kneeled, letting the thrumming of the rain on his headcover join the thrumming of his heart in his chest. 

This was it. This was the moment. Let the blood wash away his sin and his blasphemy; let death free him from the shackles of impurity; let the blade be his waking from this wretched dream. 

_The bodies and the bones and the empty throne on that cold roof would be nothing. The ghosts had parted before him, terrified, vengeful. Had the queen smirked behind that silvered helm? Had she laughed, sitting atop the corpses of a thousand good slain men? No matter. No matter._

He pulled the blade toward him. Like glory, like bloodlust, like a song.

“And thus go thee to death like the sun follows the moon...” 

His arm froze. 

He realized, with growing horror, that his left hand was stopping his right, the fingers digging into the palm. 

“Do it,” he said, gritting his teeth. The rain came down harder, freezing his skin and seeping into the cracks of his garb. “Do it!”

He pulled the knife a fraction of an inch closer. “Do as you’re meant to,” he hissed.

The knife wouldn’t budge. 

His breath came into little shallow waves, and he felt lightheaded. A peal of thunder rolled in the distance, followed by a flash of lightning. It hit something, far off, and he heard a metallic shriek in the distance; however, he still knelt before the statue, soaking wet and alive.

He curled his fingers around the knife till he felt his ankles go numb. 

“Let me die!” he shouted — to the sky, to the rain, to no one and everything in particular. “Let me have my peace!”

_I am incomplete. I am unwhole. I am a burden; a weight; a vestige._

The knife did not move further.

He looked up then, to the clouds, dark and all consuming; the water stug his eyes and pooled into his nose and burned. Where it fell on his lips it tasted sweet, like wine. 

“End me,” he begged, perhaps to the lighting. “Let me go. Let _me_ let me go.”

The storm did not reply. 

_Master,_ he thought, begging, praying. _Master, send thunder down onto me. Take my hand to do what I may not do. End this. End me, in all my unworthiness. Please. Please._

Rain fell, and nothing happened. 

With a defeated sigh, he let the knife slip from his hands, falling to the cracked stone with a clatter. 

“I am undeserving,” he said, with a long, wet sigh. 

* * *

The next morning, when the rain cleared and before the sun rose, Alfred left Yharnam.

He took little with him, but for his old axe and his last two blood vials. He debated on leaving behind his old executioner's garb, eventually relenting to bringing the coat and hood with him. The shawl he left where it lay, draped on the wooden chair in his room. It was unworthy of a blasphemer, after all.

A faint fog hugged the streets as he departed. No lights shone in the chapels; no lamps burned, though it was still dark in the early morning. He picked his way over the Great Bridge, taking all the little shortcuts and byways he knew of. 

He wasn’t sure what compelled him to make his way over to the Pilgrimage Gate; it had been locked for over a year, when the hunts increased with more frequency and the mass exodus of citizens began in earnest. _Let not the city be bloodlet,_ the Vicar had said; however, he reflected, it had drained itself all the same with each passing night. 

When he arrived, the gate lay open; the chains that once held the iron bars steadfast had slid to the ground, and the silvered padlock lay, scorched and half-melted, next to them. As if to prove a point, the gate lever had been ripped from its mechanism, permanently stuck in place.

Alfred’s skin prickled. 

_Lightning,_ he thought, as he hastily continued through the gate. _Lightning, or the work of an angry mob._

The path ahead, however, remained unpopulated. There were no signs of fire or broken molotovs that usually accompanied the riled. There was only open road, and the sound of distant birdsong. 

He took a deep breath. _May the good blood…_ he thought. 

No. He couldn’t use such a prayer any more. Or any prayer, really. The idea made his stomach twist; however, the broken city behind him somehow scared him even more.

 _May…_ he thought. 

_May my path be guided._

* * *

Leaving Yharnam felt like leaving waking up from a dream.

The air was clearer, for one thing; the heavy haze of smoke and steam was gone, long with the thick morning fog that seemed to vanish as soon as he passed the gate. 

The longer he walked, the more he felt tiredness creep into his body. It was beyond that of normal exertion; with every passing moment, the more it felt as though his limbs had been locked in sleep, and he was moving them after being at rest for so long. He wondered if he should turn around, fearing that the city steeples would have gone and disappeared on him. 

Instead, he walked on, encountering nothing and no one. 

The path he was on seemed somewhat well-worn, though weeds had begun to sprout from the cobblestones; here and there he’d pass a collapsed building or rotted little house, overtaken by the encroaching forest. He wondered if he should remember any of it. 

Now and again the surrounding mountains would break, and he would catch the distant glitter of the sea. When the path took him higher he could see its edges; a smallish valley lay below, cutting through the rocks and cliffs, dotted with tiny blackened huts.

Though it was far, he could see that it was abandoned. The tide already seemed to be swallowing most of the half-sunken buildings. One patch of shore remained above water; on it jutted the bones of some long-dead sea creature, left untouched. 

The prickle from before returned. Despite the distance and the warm day, the breeze suddenly carried a chill. It smelled of brine and bile, and Alfred shivered.

So, like the city, Alfred turned his back on the drowning hamlet and went onward.

* * *

Night fell, mercifully late. He debated starting a fire, but concluded that it would draw too much attention. He was unsure of how many beasts escaped the city, but he didn’t feel like taking the chance.

He felt his old instinct creeping up on him again; the cautiousness. The careful attention. Had he his Kirkhammer, he would likely scour the woods himself and track down whatever he came across. Now, however, the darkness only filled him with apprehension.

What was it that Eileen had told him? _Without fear_ …

Yes. That was it. That was right, wasn’t it? He’d be no better than beasthood if he flung himself into the unknown. 

Which he had done before, some small part of his brain told him. But that had been with righteousness, of course; a good a guide as terror, and more exacting, he thought to himself.

Now, obviously, he had no such boon. So instead, he clambered up a decently-high tree, seated himself as comfortably as he could among the knobbly branches, and settled in for what he hoped was a night of rest.

 _Good old Eileen…_ he thought, as he drifted into sleep. _I wonder what’s become of her…._

* * *

He was dreaming again; of the field, of the flowers and everything else. The moon was still a pale slice in the sky, and the air was still cloyingly sweet.

What had changed was the tree. Its branches were heavy, now, with strange and seemingly random objects that drifted in the breeze. A pair of delicate shoes. A raggedy, red robe. A white ribbon. A tattered church scarf, torn and mangled. A long, embroidered shawl….

Alfred turned away, feeling his chest ache. _Don’t think of it,_ he thought. _Such things are no longer for you._

The air shifted, and he felt the hairs on the back of his neck raise.

He turned. The hunter was sitting under the tree, regarding the objects in the tree with some sadness. 

“Oh,” Alfred said, mildly surprised. “It’s you.”

“Mmm.” The hunter didn’t look at him, instead watching the pale moonlight.

At a loss for what to do, Alfred sat down on the grass, resting his chin on his knuckles as he regarded the scene in front of him. 

“What is this place?” he asked. “Is it like the Hunter’s Dream?”

“Not really, no.”

“Then what is it?”

The hunter gave a half-shrug, still avoiding his gaze. His eyes, Alfred now noticed, glinted oddly in the moonlight; darker, stranger, deeper.

“I honestly don’t know,” he said. “You keep coming here, though.”

“So are you… a figment of my imagination?”

The hunter didn’t reply. Alfred took this as a yes.

“It would make sense, I suppose,” Alfred continued, leaning back against the cold grass.

“How so?”

“You and I are compatriots, are we not?”

“That’s a funny way of putting it,” the hunter said. “If you think a wad of fire paper and a fight would be worth that.”

“Do you?”

The hunter merely shrugged. “Perhaps.”

“You’re rather argumentative for a figment of my imagination.”

“So I am.”

They sat in silence, for a while, with no noise but the rustle of the tree and its trinkets in the wind.

And then:

“I wonder if you’re still alive.”

 _Then_ the hunter looked to him, his expression incredulous. “What kind of question is that?”

“I was merely thinking aloud,” Alfred said. 

“Hmm.”

The hunter then stood. “You should wake up soon,” he said. “I would if I were you.”

He looked to him again, this time somewhat bemusedly. “I wouldn’t bother with the blood vials, by the way. The most they’ll do is give you risk of infection. And not the scourgish type, I would say.”

Alfred, who has begun to get up, raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean?”

“You’ll see.”

Alfred was about to argue when the wind shifted, bringing the sound of many things clattering. 

“Goodbye, Alfred,” the hunter said. “I’d tell you not to do anything stupid, but I’m not entirely sure if you’re capable of that.”

Alfred clenched his fists. “You — !”

But the sky darkened, the wind died, and everything around him faded to nothing. 

* * *

Alfred awoke to something tapping his foot.

He jolted to consciousness, grabbed the handle of his weapon with his shout, before looking down. 

A young boy, face grimy and wearing an expression of bored curiosity, was standing beneath the tree and poking his foot with a stick. 

“Ya a woodsman, mister?” he said. “Me gran needs an old tree down out in th’ back.”

“I’m not, I’m afraid,” Alfred said, shifting in his perch. One of the branches had cut off circulation to his leg, and he winced as it prickled back to life. “What in the world gave you that impression?”

“You’ve got an axe,” the boy said. 

“ _This,_ ” Alfred said, with a touch of annoyance, “isn’t meant for felling trees. It’s a weapon, boy. Meant for rending flesh and cutting through beasts.”

“Oh,” the boy said. “Well, we haven’t got any of that, unless you count th’ weasel in the back shed. Pity, gran’ll probably make ya dinner if ya get it done quick.”

He was about to refuse again, but the emptiness of his stomach made itself known. 

“I’ll do it,” he said, sliding out of the tree. “How far is it?”

“Just up the road, mister.” The boy led him down the path, chattering idly about the late summer harvest and the particular qualities of his grandmother’s cooking. Alfred half-listened, instead focused on the recollections of last night’s dream. 

Had it meant anything? He thought to himself. That he would think of the hunter? They were barely acquaintances, of course. Compatriots in bloodshed and solitary solidarity. Good blood, he didn’t even know his name. Why would he think of him now?

On impulse, he pulled one of the blood vials from his belt. It _looked_ the same; still stoppered and whole, with the red liquid sloshing within.

He shook his head, returning the vial to its holster. Why try and delve wisdom from dreams? He wasn’t a member of the Choir. A day of walking and an uncomfortable sleeping space likely culminated into thoughts of nonsense — not some great revelation. 

“Hey, mister,” the boy said. “Where ya from?”

Alfred hesitated. For the first time, he looked back on the path he’d taken. The mountains had swallowed from whence he’d come. Not even the highest steeples of Yharnam could be seen over the stone bulwarks. 

“Nowhere,” he said. 

* * *

True to the boy’s word, dinner was provided upon removal of a fairly negligible sapling in the farmhouse yard. His provider, an old woman of indeterminable age, spoke little, other than a good-nature _tut-tutting_ as she took his empty bowl. 

_“Vychudnutý,”_ she said, shaking her head. 

“She means you’re skinny,” the boy piped up next to him. The old woman mumbled something else, and the boy added:

“She wants you to stay the night. Said she needs a new well dug.”

Alfred was about to protest — both on account of his bodily mass and of the offer — when she shoved another bowl of stew at him. 

He sighed. “One night.”

* * *

The trundle bed wasn’t the best Alfred ever slept in, but it was an upgrade from the tree.

As he did every night, he knelt before his resting place, hand clasped and eyes closed, lips ready to form the opening to his evening prayers. However, even as he did so, he found himself unable to say them. 

_Hallowed be the name of the Martyr…_

Was he even fit to say Logarius’ name, ever again? Would his master — his _former_ master, he corrected himself — even be willing to hear the pleas of a heretic? Would any god, really? Not Oedon. Not Kos. Not after his cowardice. 

Still, here as he was now, kneeling and supplicant, he still felt the urge to say _something._

He sighed. “If thou watchest me,” he said. “I am in your debt.”

And that was all that needed to be said, really.

* * *

The daunting task of well digging turned out to take longer than a day, and the old woman insisted that he stay over again. Another night turned into two, and two turned to a week, and one week turned to several as she kept finding things for him to do.

Alfred didn’t protest. The work was relatively easy, and it kept his hands busy and gave him board and a bed, for which he was thankful for. It was peaceful, in that little corner of the mountains, and he felt the tiredness slowly ease from his muscles as time went on.

He still prayed at night. He wasn’t sure to whom, but he did so nonetheless, if only out of habit. 

Late summer slowly slid into fall, beginning with it a night chill and stiffer breezes. One evening, when clouds growled overhead in the growing darkness, the old woman ushered Alfred and the boy inside and shuttered the windows, muttering to herself.

“She says a storm is coming,” the boy translated, seeming to take this as a matter of fact. 

“ _Leshy,_ ” the woman said, shaking her head. “ _Leshy boj.”_

The boy glanced to the window. “She said it’s gods fighting.”

The rain started soon after that, lashing at the windows and the roof with unmitigated fury. Lightning flashed and thunder rolled; though it was far, Alfred knew almost instantly which direction it was coming from. 

Yharnam. 

He retreated to bed early that night with a sense of unease, independent of the cacophony of the storm shaking the house. Sleep evaded him, as he tried to ignore the resurfacing memories of rain and chapels and incense and blood.

 _Forget it,_ he thought, hand unconsciously clutching his belly. _Forget it all._

* * *

_He was on the castle roof, and he knew it before he could even see it; howling wind, the hiss of snow, biting cold. He opened his eyes, expecting to see the empty iron chair as before, but it was now occupied._

_The thing in the chair wore a crown, glittering and familiar, ice crusted over a gaunt grey face and sunken eye sockets. One bony hand was curled around the scythe’s handle, while the other gripped the chair’s arm with agonized desperation. Robes, stiff with cold and ice, fluttered in the wind; otherwise, all was still._

_Alfred tensed, his stomach twisting. It could not be. It could not be._

_“Master…” he whispered, falling to his knees. The martyr was dead — he had to be. Lest all would be lost…_

_Something shifted. A pair of fingers twitched, the crack of frost echoing over the empty rooftop. A hand moved, and then the whole body. Slowly, creaking, like an unfolding clockwork, Logarius rose, his dried and mouth opening in an unending scream._

_Though the Martyr had no eyes with which to behold him, Alfred felt his gaze bore into him._

_“Master…” he attempted to say, but the Martyr was upon, great and terrible, his reaper’s blade held high. He wheezed in a breath._

“Indigne.”

_The blade fell, the wind howled, and Alfred knew nothing but cold._

* * *

Sulfur. Poison. Blood. Sickness. The faint sound of singing.

Alfred sat up. As he did so, he felt his garb resist — as he looked down, he realized that it was half-glued to the ground by a layer of sticky blood.

He stood up with a cry, bile rising in his throat as he separated himself from the ground. Part of him chided himself for being so offput by viscera — _a castle, snow, a wheel run by faith, blindness, think nothing, think nothing!_ — but it was quickly drowned by the sight of the bizarre landscape around him.

The light that broached this place was sickly. The sky stretched over him like a sprawling bruise, shifting, pulsating. The land below it was dead both in look and feeling — grey stones and cliffs, punctuated only by blackened trees and half-split graves.

The singing was growing louder. It was an odd thing, harmonic and dissonant, made of nothing but a few notes strung together with no seeming order. Something about it, however, made the hairs on the back of his neck raise.

He walked forward, trying to ignore the way the ground stuck to his boots as he picked his way around the graves. Now and again he felt something snap and crunch under his feet, and the passing glances he afforded told him it was too pale to be tree branches.

The unseen singer was still growing louder; he knew it was behind him, and he didn’t dare turn around. Instead, he walked faster. 

Alfred’s eyes scanned the horizon for something — anything. A sign. A building. A light. A human shape. The plain seemed endless — the rocks tumorous, the graves forever stretching, the noxious smell overwhelming.

 _Am I dreaming?_ He thought, shaking his head. _Will I wake up? Can I wake up?_

His heart was racing faster and faster, and the singing grew louder. He almost didn’t notice when his next footfall landed on nothing — and stopped himself just in time.

The plain _did_ have an end — steep and sudden. It was almost as though a great piece of the land had been grabbed and ripped away, leaving only a pool of mist far below, concealing whatever ground there could be beneath it.

The humming was in his ears now, throbbing and insistent. He could hear footsteps, steady, coming closer.

Alfred shifted the axe, letting it extend and fall into both hands. Whatever it was behind him, he wanted as much distance as possible.

 _If this is a dream,_ he thought, _may I wake again._

He turned around. “Whatever you may be,” he said, grip tightening around his weapon. “Face me, and I’ll —”

_Eyes blood teeth piercing eyes doll’s clothes eyes biting reaching arms grabbing singing EYES_

He couldn’t see. He couldn’t blink. He couldn’t breathe. His head felt like it was about to explode.

Alfred screamed, as the thing in front of him pulled him towards itself — 

Until a hand snatched the black of his coat, pulling him away and ripping him from the creature’s grasp. His feet grounded on nothing, he began to fall…

Blackness. Bliss. And a voice...

* * *

“Hell, _hell,_ I didn’t mean for you to end up there… _shit_. Stay awake, alright?”

Alfred couldn’t see. The ringing in his ears and the pervasive feeling of his brains trying to escape from his skull prevented him from focusing. Instead, everything was tinged with red. He longed to close his eyes and let comfortable unconsciousness take him, but something made him follow the voice’s instructions. 

Through the veil of pain he could feel someone holding him. Delicate hands shifted his body, and he was resting on something soft; then something warm pressing to his lips, and he tasted blood.

He gagged, but the thing at his mouth persisted, and he drank. 

The pain faded almost immediately, replaced with cool euphoria. _Sedative,_ thought, gratefully gulping it down.

Slowly, his vision returned, as did the rest of his senses. The first thing he noticed was the smell; past the blood, there was the cloying scent of flowers. Then the sound; rustling, clinking, the creak of old leather.

“Oh,” Alfred realized. “It’s you again, isn’t it?”

The hunter hummed in reply, pulled away his hand from Alfred’s mouth. His vision was clearing, and he could see the man above him a little more clearly now. His eyes were crinkled in worry, and there were spatters of blood on his mask and hat, rendered pale by the moonlight.

It was at that point that Alfred realized that he was resting his head on the hunter’s lap, a fact that he strangely took no protest to.

‘What was that?” Alfred muttered, closing his eyes, trying to clear the imprints of what he’d seen from his vision. _A snow-covered rooftop… dark lightning... hideous singing…._

_Unworthy, unworthy…._

“It was a nightmare,” the hunter said. “An old one. One that should be forgotten.”

Alfred didn’t reply, instead focusing on the objects in the tree above him. Little had changed about them; there was still the scarf, the shoes, the shawl ( _don’t look_ ); though now, he bemusedly noticed, their ranks were joined by a crow-beak mask. 

He shifted, his limbs still aching, and heard the hunter hiss as he did so. He craned his neck, and could see a jagged edge of red on the hunter’s torso.

“You’re hurt, aren’t you?” Alfred said, attempting to sit up. A pair of hands on his shoulders, however, kept him where he lay. 

“It’s fine,” the hunter said. “I’ll heal.”

Alfred let out a chuckle. “You _are_ alive, aren’t you?” he said, half-giddy with relief. The sedative must have been doing strange things to his head, for he suddenly felt lighter. “You’re out there somewhere, aren’t you? We’re dreaming the same dream. Where are you, you bastard?”

Alfred waited for the argument — the accusation that he was speaking nonsense, vomiting forth half-formed ideas from his medicine-addled brain. However, the hunter merely sighed. 

“I’m nowhere I can tell you,” he said. “But right now, I’m here. Does that satisfy you?”

Somewhat bewildered, Alfred merely nodded.

“Good.” The hunter looked up then, squinting his eyes at the horizon. “You should wake up again soon.”

“Wait.”

Alfred didn’t know what compelled him to say this. But the dream he was in was calm. The scent of the flowers soothed him, chasing away the shreds of the strange plane he’d fled from. And, strangest of all, the presence of the hunter eased him. 

“Let me stay,” he said. “Just for a little while.”

The hunter took a while to answer. And then:

“Ok.”

And so they sat in silence among the flowers, until the taste of blood in Alfred’s mouth faded, and the world became dark once more.

* * *

The next morning rose wet and clean and cold, the sun blazing bright as though to spite the darkness of the storm from before. 

Alfred said little that day as he cleared fallen branches and broken tree limbs. Now and again, he’d glance over the mountains, before turning away and wondering what he was looking for. 

When night fell, he dreamt of nothing. 

* * *

So it continued. Alfred stayed busy, as fall slid into winter and froze the ground the treetops, and as he did his best to forget the sulphurous plane and ice-ridden throne.

He dreamed of little in those days, mostly forgetting when he woke up. Now and again he thought he’d catch a glimpse of something — the outline of a tree, or the scent of flowers — but it was always snatched away as soon as he tried to come closer.

At one point, he took out his old blood vials, half-surprised to see them still there; however, to his disgust, he saw that the red liquid inside had congealed, leaving behind only a black sludge that clung to the bottom of the bottle.

He lay back in his bed that night, after a whispered prayer to nothing in particular, and listening to the rattling branches outside. 

_Is this it?_ he thought, watching the shadows dance on the walls. _Is this what I build for myself? Is this the life I lead from now on?_

_Is this what I wanted?_

And the former Executioner was unable to answer for himself.

* * *

The clouds were hanging heavy over the mountains that morning, and with them brought the metallic scent of snow. Alfred pulled the scarf tighter around his neck, his breath fogging in the frozen air as he watched the sky shift. 

He turned at the sound of twigs snapping behind him, tensing for a fraction of a second, and resisting the urge to unhook his axe from his belt. Old habits died with difficulty. 

“Oy, _tulák,_ ” the boy greeted him. “Gran says she needs an extra wood bundle. We’ve got a visitor.”

Alfred nodded, making his way over to the woodshed. “A visitor? That’s a rarity, indeed.”

“I’d say! Funny one, too. One of them Yharnamites, I’d reckon.”

Alfred nearly dropped the load of wood he was carrying. “Yharnamite?”

“Ya. Got a really funny accent too.”

Alfred didn’t inquire further. Instead, with a steady a stride he could maintain without sprinting, he marched toward the farmhouse.

 _It couldn’t be him,_ he thought to himself. He might be alive. But why would he come here? Would he even know? It was a day’s walk away from the city, but he’d probably left before then…

If he’d left at all.

Alfred’s heart sank when he entered the house and spotted the woman at the table, a teacup in her hand. Someone he didn’t know — unusual, for a city as closed as Yharnam, but not impossible. 

At least, until she set a steely grey gaze on him. He’d felt it bore into him before through a bird-beaked wooden mask, and it was a sight he never thought he’d see again.

“Oh,” Eileen said. “Funny seein’ you here. You’re supposed ta be dead.”

Alfred nearly dropped the logs again. “What?”

“Close yer mouth, somethin’s gonna fly into it. Sit down. We need to chat.”

The old woman of the house seemed to have vacated the room, and her grandson was likewise absent, leaving the two alone. Alfred deposited the wood by the fire, tossing a branch in the hearth before taking a chair. 

“What are you doing here?” he asked, his voice low. The old woman didn’t seem the nosy type, but he wasn’t about to take chances.

Eileen raised an eyebrow. “Huntin,’” she said. “Ach, don’t give me that expression, you’re not my quarry. I’ve been sweepin’ the outskirts. Figured a beast or two might’ve fled from the walls. There’s always some blood-addled fool out in the forests after a mass exit.”

Alfred nodded. It wasn’t uncommon for some wayward beast to attract would-be warbands to its place of origin. Such intrusions were usually a bit of light entertainment for the Yharnamites, even long after the charnel women dragged the bodies away. 

“So?” he said. “What have you found?”

“Nothin’.”

“Noth…?” he trailed off. “The city was well overrun that night, Eileen. Surely _something_ must have gotten out.”

Had it been truly overrun, though? The city had seemed eerily devoid — of beasts and otherwise — when he’d left it. Had the night’s remaining hunters managed to clear the streets once and for all?

“What’s become of it?” he said. “Is there anyone left in Yharnam?”

Eileen shook her head. “It’s a corpse of a thing. I’ve searched through it myself before I left. No beasts, no men.”

“Surely…” He tapped his fingers on the table. “Looters. Old members of the church. Prospectors.”

Eileen let out a hollow laugh. “Oh, there are those. I’ve seen ‘em — they come in through the main gates or by Hemwick or from the woods. They go in. But they don’t come back out.”

She smiled, tightly, grimly. “The city eats people. Swallows ‘em whole. Takes ‘em into her belly and doesn’t let ‘em out. And I don’t know where they’d go.”

Alfred sat back, at a loss for words. Of course, he wasn’t planning on going back, so it didn’t matter to him...

Did it?

“And what of you?” Eileen said, crossing her arms on the table. “You look healthier, I’ll say. Alfred the Executioner, now Alfred the Woodcutter?”

He cracked a smile. “I can’t bear claim to the old title, I’m afraid.”

“Isn’t that good news for an old bird.” She poured herself another cup of tea. “I thought you were a damn fool for takin’ up the wheel badge.”

Alfred didn’t reply. Eileen continued.

“You’re the first of the old guard I’ve found, I’ll say. Not every day you hear of a fellow in a church hood weildin’ a greataxe out in the woods. I feared a loose ward giant before I found ya.”

“Have you found anyone else from the city?”

“Only rumours. Heard there was some fellow up in the downlands makin’ a name for himself with a gunpowder-fueled post driver.”

“That’ll be Djura, then.”

She nodded. “Valtr’s going his way east, I think. He’s lost the helmet, from what I’ve been told.”

She paused. “And then there’s Gascgione…”

Alfred froze. “What?” he said. “But… He survived? I thought he’d been —”

“He was.”

Alfred shook his head, squeezing his eyes shut as he tried to make sense of the statement. “It can’t be,” he said. “There must be some mistake. Someone else by the name….”

“Not as far as I can tell. Viola’s with him.” She paused. “And he’s human.”

“Blood,” Alfred said, thoughts reeling. “He must have taken —”

“ _I saw the body, boy,_ ” Eileen hissed, her voice low. “He was a beast til the end. And the blood doesn’t work anymore, does it?”

Alfred’s expression seemed to give her the response she wanted, and she smiled grimly again. 

“I thought it, too, you know,” Eileen said. “I sat on the steps of the Grand Cathedral and felt death in my bones. I knew my days were done.”

She leaned forward now, conspiratorially, grey eyes glinting. “And then,” she said, “I woke up.”

She shook her head. “Not a lick of a wound on me. Just the quiet city and the sunrise.”

“And then you left?” Alfred said, quietly.

“Aye.” She sighed, leaning back. “Something happened that night, Alfred. Bigger than us. Bigger than the hunt. And something’s sleeping in that place that I fear to wake.”

Alfred didn’t reply, instead staring at the tabletop’s grain, delving it for answers to questions he couldn’t even begin to form. 

“I don’t mean to scare ya,” Eileen said, not unkindly. “But do yourself a favour. Stay out of the old city.”

Alfred, once again, did not reply.

* * *

Eileen left shortly after, bidding him farewell and vanishing to parts unknown. He watched her depart, off on the path ahead, and wondered if he would ever follow.

When night fell, he took out the blood vials again — still sludgy, still ungiving in their answers. Unconsciously, he traced a hand over his abdomen, where, for all the world, he was sure a scar should lay. 

And then, as the moonlight streamed through the cracks of his closed window, Alfred came to a decision.

* * *

The old woman kissed him on the cheek, gently admonishing him as she shoved a loaf into his arms. 

“She’s wishing you a safe journey,” the boy said. “Oh, and she says not to do anything stupid.”

Alfred managed a wan smile. “The sentiment is appreciated,” he said. “But I’m not sure if I can truly promise that.”

As Alfred turned his back on the farmhouse, it began to snow, lightly dusting his hood and sticking to the cold stones of the path. It filled the quiet road with a soft hiss, and he forged onward.

* * *

The journey back felt, somehow, longer than it had the way forward. Alfred continued even when night began to fall, and even when the snow reached his knees and rendered his extremities all but numb.

He wasn’t sure what to feel when he saw the first steeple rising over the mountains. Was it fear? Shame? Apprehension? Longing? Had he naively thought, when he first crossed those gates, that his forgotten past would come back to him, and he would never have to return?

But Yharnam was — had been — his home, was now the only past he could hope to return to.

When he finally reached the old pilgrimage gate, rusted wide open in its place, the moon had risen high. It doused the city in silver light, nearly as bright as day-time, much to his relief. There was no smog, this time, to obscure it; and the air was clear and cold as anything.

And so, with questions his head, Alfred passed through. 

All was quiet; snow coated everything, from the rooftops to the trees to the cobblestones, hiding the formless shapes underneath with indiscrimination. 

Though it had only been a few months, everything in the city felt far, far older. Already tree roots had begun to rip through the cobblestones; parts of the ground had already begun to collapse, leaving deep holes in the roads and byways. He peered down one, at one point, wondering if he’d see the depths of the ancient catacombs; however, he could only see dirt and debris at the bottom. 

Alfred searched, wandering about the city with the endless patience of a man once lost, unsure of what he was searching for. Though it was late, and the day’s journey should have demanded him sleep, he found himself instead energized. The longer he walked, the more he felt it: the infernal drive. The thrill of a hunt, quiet though it was, that had kept him alive through many a night. 

He picked his way over the remains of the Great Bridge, avoiding rubble and the deep holes within. Someone or something had managed to wrench the bridge gate open, much to his relief; however, as he climbed the steps through the Cathedral Ward, he felt his heart sink as he beheld the Grand Cathedral itself.

Even from a distance, he could tell that its roof had collapsed, sinking in under its own weight. The clocktower had fallen with it, its smashed dials littering the steps and being rapidly buried in the snow. 

He beheld the ruin, agape. The building that had once seemed to scrape the sky now seemed to be eating itself, collapsed and impacted; what once filled him with awe now filled with pity, and a hollow sorrow that settled deep within the pit of his stomach. 

_This couldn’t have happened in a few months,_ he thought. _Something… someone…_

But, as always, his speculations, and the ruins before him, offered no answers.

* * *

He continued to wonder, going in no particular direction. He passed through Hemwick in a daze, its silent chimneys and charnel ovens bearing no smoke or warmth. 

A lone carriage, sundered and smashed, lay on its side by the road marker, chained to a pair of dead, frozen horses. Its crest had been splintered to oblivion, but Alfred knew what it once bore.

He stared at it, silent, before turning back to the heart of the city.

The Central Ward was somewhat intact, though Iosefka’s old clinic seemed to have suffered the same treatment as the chapel. Oedon’s Tomb was fairly undisturbed, though something about it made his skin oddly prickle. 

He thought of Eileen, and what she told him. He wondered if he’d ever get the chance to apologize. 

And he wondered why he could not escape the feeling of being watched. 

He continued.

Oedon Chapel, mercifully, still stood, and it even bore the faint stench of incense about it. As he passed through its gates, he found himself tracing that old familiar path; down the stairs, past the plaza, towards the old church…

He wasn’t sure what he expected. A sign. An omen. Something that would give him answers; heavens, something that would give him _questions_. But the statue still stood as it always had, the crown laying before it, now coated in snow. And, sitting where he’d discarded it, the dagger. 

He almost reached for it. Almost. 

But something made him pause.

How many times had he kneeled before the wax-coated little altar? How many endless nights did he spend, searching? How many times had he begged for guidance from a long-dead Master?

How much had he received in return?

That night had been long ago. If he closed his eyes, he could still see it; taste it, even. Blood in his teeth. Viscera on his garb, triumphant and gleaming. The mad glint of moonlight. The dagger, sharp and sure. 

But when he opened them again, all he could see was the slate-grey of snow and the smell of smoke from Old Yharnam. 

He sighed. What was he doing here? He should leave. Go back to the old woman and the peaceful mundanity of simply existing. Or go further up the road; find his past. Find his future. Find someplace other than this damnable corpse of a city. 

Somewhat at a loss for what to do, he found himself wandering back the chapel, up the way to the old workshop tower. Perhaps there was a path there, like when he’d found the Executioner’s workshop so long ago. At the very least, it could be shelter from the cold.

The old tower creaked rather concerningly in the wind as he approached, and he wondered again whether it was a sound idea.

The floorboards seemed somewhat intact; when he stepped in, they were solid under his feet, and he breathed a sigh of relief. 

Until, however, he took another step, and the entire structure groaned. 

Before he could react, the entire tower lurched; planks splintered under his feet, and Alfred felt himself fall through the collapsing floor, tumbling down into the darkness below. 

He let out a shout, reaching for something — _anything_ — to grab on. His hand brushed stone, and he grasped it, pulling himself forward to something he could see. 

He landed with a slight tumble, snow billowing around him as he rolled to a stop. He sat up with a groan, half-muttering a prayer in thanks for his mercifully unbroken bones, before taking in the scene around him.

As he did, he felt the hairs raise on the back of his neck. 

“Oh.”

It was the dream. The old one — the half-remembered one, where he’d woken up to a strange man in a wheelchair and a doll that moved and talked. 

He stood, wincing at the ache in his legs as he half-blindly stumbled forward. The stone, he noticed, was charred and scorched, as though a great fire had been set inside; indeed, the wood within it was all but blackened, the books and furniture nothing more than charcoal. 

The life-sized doll in the corner, however, sat pristine, almost glowing against the slate greys of the burned workshop. Though it didn’t move, Alfred could not help but feel it was observing him. 

He turned away, his head swimming. Old memories were bubbling up within him again, unbidden, unpleasant. 

As he did, something caught his eye. 

The gravestone at the foot of the tree was old. Its lettering was faded, and it stubbornly bore lichen, despite the snow and the cold. The dirt underneath it, however, was freshly upturned.

The objects atop the raw soil made him freeze. A lone hat, its feathers withered and tattered, still stained with blood; and a saw cleaver, folded and cold.

Shaking, Alfred picked up the hat. Could it be any other’s? But he was the only one he’d seen ever wear it; and he was the only one Alfred had ever seen use that weapon in conjunction with it.

There was a dusting of snow on both objects. They could not have been left there recently. 

He shook his head. “Did you abandon them here?” he said to himself. “Is this a marker? A reminder? What would you make me think?”

The gravestone did not reply. 

“You’re hiding, aren’t you?” he said. “You’re in some nook of this city, keeping to yourself. I’ll scour it, I’ll have you know. Don’t think you can conceal yourself from me.”

The grave did not reply. 

“Why are you here?” he said. “Why now?”

The grave did not reply. 

Alfred let out a long sigh, his breath steaming in the frozen air, rendered all but opaque in the moonlight. 

“If you were here,” he said, slowly, “what would you wish for me to be?”

Silence. Slowly, the wind shifted, brushing some of the powder snow off the gravestone; with it, the smell of ice. And something sweet.

Alfred took in a sharp breath. Was it the moon making the pale grave glow, or was it something else? There it was — the faint light; one he’d watched for to the ends of the city on that first, damnable night. 

Slowly, he knelt. Reaching forward with a quaking hand, he touched the gravestone, cold enough to bite flesh. 

And the world turned white. 

* * *

Moonlight. Flowers. Warmth. A tree. Always, these things unending. 

And him. 

“You came back,” the hunter said. “I told you not to.”

Now Alfred could see more clearly the things wrong with him; the way the light bent strangely around his body. The too-sallow skin. The way the edges of him seemed too _thin_ — that there was something within much larger than what the eyes partook, and how it all seemed under strain. 

Yet, somehow, it was breathtaking.

“You brought me back,” Alfred said, slowly. “Didn’t you?”

The hunter sighed, slowly, closing his eyes. “Would it make sense that I did?”

“It doesn’t make any sense at all.”

“Few things in this city do,” the hunter said. 

‘What are you?” Alfred said, voice almost pleading. “A dream? A spirit? Something in my own head?”

“Something beyond your imagining.” He sat down, then, crossing his thin legs over the grass and flowers in a tired sort of fashion. 

Slowly, half at a loss of what else to do, Alfred joined him. There wasn’t much distance between them, thought now, somehow, the man across him seemed miles away.

“Were you always this way?” he said, softly. The question felt almost childish — perhaps it was the way he was sitting, supplicant before a teacher. The hunter shook his head. 

“It happened that night,” the hunter said. “I didn’t intend it.”

“How?”

The hunter’s gaze turned steely. “You wouldn’t want to know.”

_Did the grass, in that moment, feel like bones under his hand? Why did the moon, for all the world, look like it had been rendered and bitten? Was it a roar of thunder he’d heard that night, or the dying scream of something greater?_

_What teeth did that tattered mask hide?_

“Very well, then,” Alfred said. “I suppose it wouldn’t be my business.”

The hunter chucked at that, before sitting back in the grass with another sigh. 

“I tried to fix it all, you know,” he said. “I tried to save what I could. Gilbert. Arianne. Eileen. Henryk wanted to move on. I don’t blame him, I suppose.”

“Where are they now?”

“Elsewhere. Out of this wretched city. Away from blood and beasts and gods. That’s the best I could hope for them.”

“But not everyone?”

“No. Some were too far gone. Too tied in the Church. They’d only try and start it all over.”

Alfred realized his fingers were digging into the dirt, now, as his body slowly tensed. 

“Why me, then?”

The hunter regarded him, slowly, carefully. “I wanted for you what I wanted for everyone else,” he said, after a measure. “A better life. A life at all.”

He paused. “Perhaps I didn’t want to believe it, when I saw you up at Cainhurst. I wished you weren’t the laughing madman in the castle. I wished you weren’t the corpse in front of the altar.”

He sighed. “But it wouldn’t be you, then, would it?”

“But you stopped me —”

“I didn’t.” The hunter shook his head. “All I did was burn away the scourge within you.”

Alfred’s breath hitched in his throat. 

Had he, in that moment, supplicant before the Martyr, wanted to live?

He breathed in. _I am a liar,_ he thought. _Most of all, to myself._

Was it the weight of freedom that lay on his shoulders? The guilt of blasphemy? Did it matter? 

Had it been for nothing? He thought of Cainhurst again; wondered if he would care if it still stood, or if it crumbled and crashed into the sea. A monument to his only triumph. The ruin of his greatest folly. 

“I don’t know who I am any more,” he said, softly.

“To be fair,” the hunter said, “I say that to myself fairly often.”

Something in Alfred’s thoughts shifted. 

He recalls a light puzzle that Djura showed him once; it looked like an oddly-carved lump of wood, casting a show equally formless, unless you turned and held it the right way. When you did, the strangely-shaped thing became an image, easy and instant.

“Why did I keep seeing you?” he said. “You kept bringing me back here, didn’t you?”

The hunter, Alfred realized, was avoiding his gaze now, keeping it fixed to something unseen in the distance. 

“It’s the opposite, actually,” he said. “At least, after the first time. You kept finding your way back here.”

He paused. “I could hear you at night. Praying. I think that’s how you ended up in the drags of the Nightmare Frontier — you were looking for me.”

Alfred’s fingers curled tighter. “You heard me?”

“Yes.” He paused. “I didn’t intend that, either.”

Alfred stayed silent. The dream was as always: peaceful. The trinkets in the tree swayed. The flowers stayed ever-blooming. He wondered, longingly, that if he lay back on the grass and slept, if he would ever wake again. 

“What would you have become of me now?” he said. 

The hunter merely shrugged. “That,” he said, “is entirely up to you. Go back up the path. Live in the mountains. You seemed happy where you were. That is all I could want for you.”

Alfred realized the hunter seemed sad as he said this. His gaze was still avoidant, mask still covering his mouth. 

Reason had no time to cross his brain. Alfred leaned forward, reaching out, reaching for the mask…

A hand snatched at his wrist with inhuman speed. The strength in the hunter’s bony fingers was deceitful; though his touch was light, Alfred had a feeling that if he squeezed harder, his arm would shatter like glass.

“I want to see you,” Alfred said. “As you are.”

“This is what I am,” the hunter said, simply. However, his grip eased, and he slowly uncircled his hand from Alfred’s wrist, the fingertips tracing over his skin perhaps a moment longer than necessary. 

Slowly, gently, Alfred reached for the hunter’s face, and peeled away the cloth concealing it.

It was… normal. Human. A little on the thin side; flushed, even. He wasn’t sure what he’d been expecting, be it teeth or a too-wide grin or even some incomprehensible void. Perhaps that’s what his skin truly hid. But, for now, all there was was a pair of lips, thin, withdrawn. 

Alfred realized his hand was lingering on the hunter’s cheek. However, the man didn’t seem to mind. 

“What if I were to stay?” Alfred said, softly. 

“I’m not sure if I could stop you.” 

“Would you want to?”

Silence. A breeze, tousling the hunter’s hair. A pair of eyes, hiding something incomprehensible.

Alfred leaned forward and pressed the hunter’s lips to his.

They were a little cool and a little dry, pulling back in surprise as he did so; however, Alfred was insistent, and, after a moment’s pause, he felt a hand snake through his hair and dig its way into the curls, pulling him closer. 

His whole body suddenly felt set aflame. He pulled away only to be drawn back in again, kissing in awkward, desperate little rushes that came as fast as he breathed, and he was falling forward, he was a weight on top of the man underneath him…

What was this feeling? Desire? Devotion? All Alfred wished to do was to touch and taste and caress this man — _this god,_ he corrected himself — and he wasn’t sure how right it was. His hands suddenly felt clumsy. His motions suddenly felt impure. His thoughts condensed, out of the hot haze of impulsivity, into one word: 

_Unworthy._

He shut his eyes. _For I am…._

A pair of lips pressing to his forehead brought him back. The hunter was looking up to him, eyes aglow with an affection both human and incomprehensible. 

“ _Shhhh_ ,” his voice said, his faintly-smiling lips unmoving. _“Easy. You’re fine._ ”

Perhaps it was the simplicity of it. Perhaps it was merely hearing it. In any case, Alfred felt himself relax. 

Things moved both slowly and quickly after that. It felt meandering, in a certain way; a touch here. A soft bite there. Hands wandering, with no purpose but to soothe.

Even when it reached a certain point, it was languid. The hunter felt warm and all-consuming; and in his heat and embrace, Alfred let himself unravel and be lost. 

Afterward, when his head cleared, and when he realized that his nose was buried in a dark mop of hair that smelled of fire and cold flowers, he contemplated how much of it could be providence. 

Alfred looked down. The hunter’s eyes were closed, but he knew they were still seeing. He wondered what he looked like to him. 

_Are you what I can comprehend?_ He thought. Then again, would he even want to be able to?

An old memory, long unbidden, rose to the surface of his thoughts. Ancient parchment. Candlelight. A path, straight and sure, closed forever. 

_For what we cannot understand,_ Logarius had said, _we strive for. For there is beauty in the untenable; and what we grasp, we cannot walk towards. What is unreachable, we rise to._

So it was written. 

The hunter shifted, curling himself closer. He felt colder than a human should, but Alfred didn’t care. 

“Would you still want to stay?” the hunter said, his voice low and muffled against Alfred’s chest. “I can’t offer you much. Only a ruined city. Only an abandoned dream.”

He paused. “I need someone to watch what remains. There are still those who would return. Unearth the old gods. Start it all over again. I won’t allow them.”

Slowly, Alfred nodded. And before him, he saw a path, bright and clear, open its arms.

“Good.” The hunter did something unseen with his hand; then, the next thing Alfred knew, there was a palm pressing to his mouth, and the taste of blood.

He sighed, closing his eyes and letting himself drink it down. The taste was of something long-forgotten; but this time, he felt no revulsion. 

In it, there was only bliss, and lingering sweetness.

* * *

The city in the mountains is a thing long-forgotten; the road to it has long-crumbled, and trees have all but rendered most entrances impassable. There is a lake, constantly covered in a bulwark of mist and rimmed by mountainside treacherous. Maps, somehow, slide over it in their notations. Those near to it refuse to acknowledge it even exists.

Scholars and surveyors attempted to find the strange place known as Yharnam. Accounts, passed down like prophecies and half-remembered nightmares, said it was huge and sprawling, made of stone and brick and things that lasted. It was a place of healing and faith, where blood was delivered with the morning milk, and proved to be an elixir more curative and intoxicating than love at first sight. 

Few make it there. Fewer return.

Of those that do, they have little to report; only half-wrecked buildings, too worn to make any details of, and hazardous walkways littered with sinkholes and roots.

That, perhaps, would account for most of the missing, though even the most-sure footed are said not to stand a chance. 

Some whisper that the city eats people; swallows them whole and digests them, not even leaving bones.

If there is anything to be found living there — for despite the roots, even the trees seem to have died — is what half say is a ghost and the other half call a warden.

He waits, with the endless indescribable patience of someone long used to it, and watches. He is friendly, even — he walks the crumbling paths and ruined stepways like they rise to support him, and even the thicket in front of the city is seemingly traveserable when he navigates it, unneeding of the axe at his side.

The only thing he ever does is watch and pray and escort you to the exit — and at least, this is said by those who came back.

Those who would chance to scrutinize his garb, all-black, would see the stains of old blood.

Few can enter Yharnam. Even fewer return. And eventually, nobody comes at all.

And this suits the watcher and his god just fine.

**Author's Note:**

> My only regret is my tenuous grasp of Slovak, which I apologize for.


End file.
